


The Chain

by bannanachan



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-10
Updated: 2012-10-10
Packaged: 2017-11-16 00:48:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/533640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bannanachan/pseuds/bannanachan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>24 hours after their journey begins Jade and Davesprite haven't talked.  Jade wants to.  Davesprite doesn't.  Lucky for Jade, he's going to have to if he wants his wing to heal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Chain

It’s precisely 19 hours, 16 minutes, and 45 seconds (“real” Dave’s not the only one who can do time shit) after you get on this ship that she speaks to you for the first time.

“Davesprite!”

You turn around. There on the deck, a few feet away from you, stands Jade. She’s perky as ever, grinning broadly and seeping energy even though she ought to be traumatized. You’re surprised, and immediately feel awkward. You’ve kind of been avoiding her since you all got here, which was not hard in the gigantic crowd of salamanders, turtles, iguanas, crocodiles, Prospitians, and Dersites. And the other sprites… minus Jadesprite.

Which is why you’ve been avoiding her. It has been less than a day since you were standing beside her, watching the world end and discovering new depths of helplessness. And then she was gone, and there was this girl in her place: the “real” Jade. Which you buy about as much as you buy this “real” Dave bullshit, but it didn’t seem to matter to the universe or anyone else. Your Jade, with her green fur and lovely tears, was swallowed up. Gone. And using her shell, this Jade saved you all. For which you’re thankful. You really are. But you are not going to tell her that. You are not ready to talk to her, not this soon, probably not ever, because no matter what angle you look at her from all you see is a usurper – an impostor. Coming from you, that’s ironic. But not in a good way.

“C’mere!” She beckons to you, and when you still don’t move, she walks over, either not noticing your reticence or not giving a shit. Probably the latter. “Hi.” She offers by way of greeting, still smiling. “How are you doing?”

“Me? Chill as ice, same as usual. Shit’s like Alaska up in here.” Seeing the way those dog-ears twitch is painful, but it’s not nearly enough to make you crack.

“Good!” She says. “I was worried: I mean, having everyone here is really fun, but it’s kind of overwhelming! I don’t think I’ll ever learn all these names. With everything that’s happened, I’m pretty stressed out, but I think everyone else is too, so I guess that sort of makes it okay.”

Stressed out is one way to put it, you suppose, although you personally would have gone with ‘destroyed, exhausted, angry, and desolate.’ Also, no fucking way, you are not talking about feelings with this girl, she can take it to her brother. “Yeah, well, shit takes time, but time is one thing we have in excess, apparently.”

She giggles. “I suppose so. Hey, c’mere though: I’ve got something to show you and I can’t do it out here.”

You raise your eyebrows. “And where are we going then, Harley? You’ve got your pick of five planets, after all. We could go on a magic carpet ride with Unreal Air, sing some Disney songs while we see the sights and you show me the world.”

She rolls her eyes. “Not that far, stupid. It’s just inside the ship. Follow me.”

Baffled, but with absolutely nothing better to do, you follow.

You follow her down two hallways and one flight of stairs before you come to a door, and she stops to open it. Entering, it becomes clear that this is some sort of stateroom: a fairly modest bed in the corner, a desk with what looks like some maps of Skaia on it with a chair behind it, and an armoire, all decorated in shining white and gold. This does not catch your attention nearly so much as the pile on the floor of assembled medical supplies in every form. Bandages, band-aids, antiseptic, tweezers, Tylenol cold, Tylenol flu, Ibuprofen, and skin creams are mixed together into a large pile of items with no apparent organizing principle. You survey it for a minute before turning back to Jade, who has closed the door. “Well, it’s… impressive.”

She shrugs. “It’s not exactly professional. I mean, this is just everything that John and I could find in our houses: the carapaces and consorts probably have their own medical stuff, but I’m really not sure about trying it out until we’ve talked to them some more. We could try to alchemize some fancy human hospital stuff, but I think this will do.”

You remain dumbfounded, although you try not to show it. “Do for what?”

“Well… for you.” She suddenly seems a lot more hesitant, a lot gentler, and suddenly you get her meaning. You hadn’t really thought much about doing something for your wounds, aside from maybe cleaning your and Bro’s blood off. Your stomach’s pretty much numb at this point, and you’re not sure the wing’ll ever grow back, which is fine, it’s not like you even need it to fly.

“We can’t just leave you like that.” Jade says. “I don’t know if like, the same stuff that works on humans will work on a sprite that used to be a human, but it’s better than doing nothing. You can do it on your own, but I think we might have better luck if you let me clean your wing, since you probably can’t reach back there.”

She’s right. You almost died battling Jack, you could probably use some medical attention now that you have the downtime for it, regardless of sprite versus human biology or whatever. And no, you can’t reach behind your own back that well. But that doesn’t make you any more comfortable with letting other people see you vulnerable, which is what you’d be doing. Especially “real” Jade. You didn’t even say a word to her during the game, either in your timeline or the alpha reality: she died quickly in the future you’re from, and this time around you were both busy with other things, her with her Dave and you with her dreamself, who was pretty much the only person around after Bro died who seemed to care and the only one who knew what you were going through – who understood. It had only been a few hours, but they had been such a comfort, especially when you thought they were your last. And now you’re still alive, and that’s great, but that Jade is gone and no one cares but you. So no, you don’t really want to do this, at least not right now, not with her.

Unfortunately, you don’t see that you have much choice in the matter. As per usual.

“Sure, Jade.” You say after a moment. “Knock yourself out.”

She smiles kindly back, and you feel kind of bad, because it’s not her fault and she’s trying so hard to be nice, you can tell. You float down to the floor, tail curling under you. You don’t really sit – you can’t really sit – but it might be helpful to her to not be floating like you usually do. You feel her sit down behind you, but don’t see it, and you’re glad you don’t really have to look at her… it’d only make you more embarrassed. You stretch out what remains of your right wing so she can look at it.

She reaches out a hand and runs it carefully over the matted-up feathers, coming away with sticky blood on her fingers. “Yeesh, Davesprite, did you even clean this yet?” She scolds, and grabs a warm wet towel from the pile beside you. “You’re kind of a mess.”

“Well jeez, don’t beat around the bush about it just to spare my feelings.” You are about to start on a more intricate retort when she starts dabbing firmly at the wing with the towel and okay, that stings a little, so maybe now is not the time to display your skills as a Strider and master of wit. Four months ago, you would have said there was no such time, but lately, you’re just tired.

“You don’t have to be so defensive, you know. Everyone’s kind of a mess around here.” She says after a minute, and her voice is so quiet, so vulnerable, that you feel like an asshole even though you haven’t done anything wrong.

“Shit, Jade, I didn’t mean… look, thanks for doing this.” For God’s sake, Strider, keep it together, now is not the time to get all genuine, not with her.

You hear her laugh very lightly, not out of mirth. “Well, you’re welcome. I’ve had enough of dead Daves for a lifetime, you can bet I’m not letting any more happen.”

“I wasn’t aware you’d had so much exposure to my corpse. He was playing the timeloops a hell of a lot better than I did, I can tell you that. What, was corpsesmooching him that hard on you?”

She doesn’t actually say anything, and you’re shocked for half a second because fuck, is she really that upset, it’s Jade and she should be hitting you right now when suddenly she’s pouring something over your wing and it’s on fucking FIRE. You make a mental note to stop pissing off Jade while you’ve got a bloody wing and she’s got a bottle of antiseptic.

“Jesus fuck, Harley, point taken.” You hiss through your teeth, flinching. “You could maybe warn me.”

“I didn’t want to deal with you whining like a bitch.” She says, jovial as ever, and you’re suddenly so gratified to hear her swearing at you.

“This coming from an actual furry.” Talking to her is actually sort of fun, setting aside the thoughts of Jadesprite and the fact that you are in all kinds of pain right now.

She just laughs at that, because you’ve got here there and she knows it, and then you get quiet again. The sting of the antiseptic has died down, but your wing still feels raw and fresh and entirely too exposed. You cast a brief glance at the floor to the right of and behind you, where the empty bottle of antiseptic sits in a mixture of its contents and your yellow blood, washed clean off, a few broken feathers dotting the surface of the pool with more still falling. There is no denying your vulnerability any more, hunched on the floor with teeth gritted together and Jade careful at your back, and she might be nice, she might be the nicest girl in the world but God you do not want anyone seeing you like this. You are a Strider, you should be a fortress. You should not be holding back tears when all she’s done is clean your wound.

She must sense your change in mood, though, because she is impeccably gentle, like you’re made of fucking ceramic, as she reaches over to the pile, pulls out an ace bandage, and begins wrapping it around the edge of your clipped wing. “There’s still plenty more of this for your middle, too, so don’t worry.” She’s trying so hard not to be patronizing, and you can tell she knows how not okay you are with this situation, but she can also tell that you’d rather live the last 48 hours all over again than show it. Miraculously, for once, she’s letting you fake it, and you’d thank her for it if that wouldn’t kind of defeat the purpose.

Wrapping up your stump is awkward, all feathers and angles and light crow-bones (you have bones, it would seem, or at least your wings do), and it takes her a while, and whatever passed for conversation between you has officially faded to awkward silence. She finishes up, tucks the end of the bandage (she’s had to use like five) into the wrappings. Hesitantly, her hand moves to the base of your wing and she strokes your skin, a little too gently actually. You’re not offended. But you brush her off.

“Done.” She says. “Now turn around so I can work on the other one.”

You are about to turn when she speaks again, so quickly like she’s desperate, and the words stop you. “She’s not dead you know.”

You freeze up. “What do you mean ‘she’?” You ask, even though you’re pretty sure you know.

“Jadesprite. Like, I didn’t just take her powers and erase her consciousness. I just sort of… made room? We’re the same person now. Well, we were always the same person, I guess, but now we actually are. I still have her memories, from the dream bubbles and being a sprite, all of them. She didn’t just poof off into space and leave me the First Guardian stuff, she became a part of me, and not like an insubstantial niggling part… I don’t even know if you could call it a part! She is me, there’s nothing to keep us separate any more. So I hope you don’t just… think she died, because she didn’t. I was worried, since you hadn’t talked to me, and you were talking to her so much when the session was ending.”

Well. Shit. That’s sort of… important. You turn, slowly, and look at her, and her face is so sincere that you know somehow she speaks no lie. “Oh.” You say, intelligently. “I didn’t know.”

“I figured. You’re forgiven. It took me a while to sort out my own head, for goodness’ sake, and we’ve all been running around like crazy trying to get the ship set up. Silly me, thinking that we could have some downtime!” She giggles, and the urge to hug her, to just embrace her so tight, wrap your tail around her skirt and hold her and thank her and apologize and feel alive from it is so overwhelming that you have to stop moving altogether for a second to keep from acting on it. Because if that’s true, then maybe – just maybe – there’s still someone out there who will understand, or listen at least, and you’ll be damned if she’s not sitting here right in front of you.

“Thanks, Jade.” This is simultaneously the most and the least you could possibly say.

She grins. “You’re welcome. Now come on, let me work on that bandage, it’s bled the whole way through. Didn’t Bro ever teach you to care for your own wounds?”

It will be eight days, one hour, six minutes and thirty-five seconds before you first change the bandages on your stomach without it starting to bleed again. It will be thirty-eight days, nine hours, and fifty-two seconds before John starts dropping the ‘sprite’ from your name, and you’ll notice that Jade still isn’t doing it. It will be fifty days, seven hours, twenty-four minutes, and twenty-two seconds before your stomach heals so that all that’s left is a hard, shiny yellow scar. It will be one hundred and eight days, six hours, fifty-four minutes, and fifty-nine seconds before Jade realizes your wing has grown back completely. Six seconds after that, she will run over to you, grab whole fistfuls of your chest feathers, and kiss you straight on the mouth without a trace of hesitation. This will cause you to lose track of time desperately enough that you have no idea when you started kissing her back. But you’d bet it was less than a second.

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from the song "The Chain" by Ingrid Michaelson


End file.
